Carpe Diem, The Series: Hit the Trails

Paul Stevens

What a difference a week makes!  Last weekend, we had a late season bout of wet snow and rain that made for nothing short of miserable weather. As is said, April can be the cruelest month; teasing us with true spring-like weather one day only to turn it on its ear the next.  This past weekend however, someone turned on the heat switch and added cloudless skies to the mix.  Temperatures were in the low 20s; that’s about room temperature to those still married to the Fahrenheit  way of doing things.  Beautiful!

We had the added benefit of having some friends come to stay with us for the weekend and we were able to show them some of the finer points in town.  Never enough time for this sort of thing but we crammed in a bunch of fun anyway.  After a walk around the lakefront, we took our friends to enjoy one of Sarnia’s greatest guilty pleasures known locally as ‘chips under the bridge’. 

The Bluewater Bridge spans the St. Clair River and joins Sarnia with Port Huron on the U.S. side.  A favourite pastime of the locals is to enjoy a park bench along the river while watching the lumbering lake freighters amble by.  What better way to compliment this relaxed atmosphere than partaking of a plate of fresh cut French fries.  Lightly salted and showered in white vinegar, a true Canadian approach to enhance the flavour of the lowly spud. 

There are a number of chip trucks that serve up what some might consider a delicacy and everyone seems to have their favourite as each was seen to be doing a brisk business. We have our preferred vendor and so we introduced our friends to that one.  No one was disappointed as the primordial need for grease was tastefully satisfied.  Let’s be clear here,  this is an occasional treat and nowhere near part of my steady diet.  We would be remiss however if we did not share this local pleasure with our friends and so long as we’re not doing this every weekend,  we should be able to keep the defibrillators at bay.

Having said that, it is somewhat of a sad commentary to note that some of the patrons shouldn’t be seen within 10 miles of such places,  given their rather generous waistlines.  Now that may seem like an unnecessarily harsh observation bordering on a ‘holier than thou’  attitude but when you see too many plump (OK – fat) people and their similarly outsized offspring loading up on fries, burgers, soft drinks followed by ice cream chasers, you can’t help but pause to consider the long term effects. We enjoy a pretty good public health system here in Canada but there shouldn’t be a level of responsibility about taking care of ourselves to ensure we don’t bankrupt the service?    

If life is about anything, it’s about balance so dinner consisted of freshly caught walleye/pickerel from a local Sarnia fish shop.  The ability to take advantage of a supply of just caught fresh fish didn’t exist when we lived in the Toronto area as Lake Ontario is not on the same level of cleanliness enjoyed by Lake Huron.  You are told to eat fish caught from Lake Ontario only a few times a year and if you partake of a larger one, don’t eat the lower belly as that is where the heavy metals will settle.  How can you find any comfort in that?!  Eat the rest but avoid the belly unless you want to munch on mercury, cadmium and the like.  How quickly can you say, “No thanks.”

The plan was to take our friends on a bike ride on Sunday morning along a ‘rails to trails’ pathway that mostly parallels the Lake Huron shoreline. These things are great and I know of and have ridden on a number of them in Ontario.  You can ‘google’ search them in your area and the websites that I have used provide a useful description and give you meaningful information concerning length, suggested travel stops, bathroom locations (important!), etc.  Comments are often provided by past users so you get an unbiased review.

As the name suggests, these were former rail lines that are no longer in use.  They’re about the width of a single car driveway and generally are covered with hard-packed crushed gravel providing a comfortably smooth and consistent surface.  Since they were former rail lines, they are very level as trains can only handle about a 2% grade.  No motor vehicles of any kind are permitted on the trails so it’s just cyclists, hikers, joggers, and even a few would-be cowboys/cowgirls on horseback. The trails tend to be well shaded so even on the hottest of summer days, you probably won’t be fried. 

The local trail runs about 15 km with future expansion plans to lengthen its run.  As such, you will have a nice relaxing traffic free ride for up to 30 km at a pace that is comfortable for you.  It’s OK to maintain whatever pace you like so long as you realize that you are sharing the trail with others. Our friends however had to make an early departure on Sunday so we were unable to take the ride, making this a mission for the next visit. 

You may have these trails in your respective areas and if you haven’t tried one,  I encourage you to get out there and give it spin.  You will not be disappointed.  Depending on how far you plan to ride or where the trail takes you, you can pack a lunch or stop at a local establishment to recharge your batteries. It makes for a great outing and at the end of the day, you are ready for a hearty meal and you don’t feel guilty about it.  Heck, throw in dessert too!

Since our friends had to leave at an early hour, the day was left open so with a perfectly sunny day beckoning,  I took to the road for a very pleasant 40 km that left enough time in the rest of the day to get to those damn backyard chores that call loudly when the weather starts to warm up.  I’ll be back on the bike this week as the weather is scheduled remain inviting for at least the next several days.  I’m also scheduled to do a fitness test at one of the area universities so I’ll give you an update about that soon. I sit here hoping that I don’t embarrass myself.

Your friend, Paul.

And remember – Carpe Diem (but in relaxed sort of way)!